Nearly all new vehicles include some sort of ability to wirelessly communicate. These communications are usually carried out using a vehicle telematics unit carried by the vehicles. The vehicle telematics unit can place wireless voice calls that a vehicle occupant can use to speak with various recipients, such as a call center or other recipient using cellular telephony communications. The vehicle telematics unit can also place data calls to transmit data using cellular telephony communications; this data often relates to the operation of the vehicle. That is, the vehicle telematics unit not only can wirelessly communicate voice/data content but it can also gather information relating to vehicle operation and wirelessly send that information to a location away from the vehicle.
However, the vehicle telematics unit often uses a wireless carrier to send vehicle data and each time the vehicle telematics unit transmits data over the wireless carrier, fees are incurred. These fees can be calculated in a variety of ways, such as by the amount of data sent, the amount of time used to send data, or both. While transmitting data from the vehicle via the vehicle telematics unit is helpful for monitoring vehicle health, the cost of transmission can be significant—especially when these costs are spread out over a large number of vehicles. Thus, reducing the cost of wirelessly sending data can be helpful.